IGBIS Weekly Newsletter. Issue 148, Week 4, March 2018.

IGB International School’s Weekly Newsletter - Issue 148. Week 4. March 2018.

ISTA Festival 2018 ~ Pg.4

Message from Head of School Mrs. Anne Fowles Head of School

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News from Secondary School Dr. Michael Arcidiacono Secondary School Principal

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News from Elementary School Mr. Simon Millward Elementary School Principal

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INSIDE • PYPX 2018: Week 2 | Pg. 3 • IGBIS Student Achievement: Global Goals Model United Nations (MUN), 2018 | Pg. 4 • ISTA Festival | Pg. 4 • Kids and Screen Time Discussion | Pg. 5 • Flying Phoenix! | Pg. 6

Sun, Mar 25

8:00am - 12:00pm IGBIS Comunity Playground @ Field 9:00 am - 12:00 pm

Day 3. Wed, Mar 28

6:30 pm – 8:00 pm DP Art Exhibition @ L2 Visual Arts Studio

Day 4. Thu, Mar 29

1:45 pm – 2:45 pm Elementary School Production: “Phoenix – A Musical Story” @ Theatre

Apr 2 - Apr 6

School Holidays

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Message from Head of School Dear IGBIS Parents and Community Members, The school board met this week with one of the agenda items being the school fee schedule for 2018-19. We anticipate that this will be finalised and ready for distribution before the April break.

The Elementary School is excited about the community playground that has been in the midst of planning and preparation for some time now. 100 tyres have been painted and are ready to be used!

The big day for creating the playground is coming up on Sunday, so our Elementary School families and teachers are looking forward to seeing everyone who can come along to help. The start time is 8am to make use of the cooler morning hours.

Next week there are more major events with the IB Diploma Visual Arts Exhibition opening on Wednesday night and the Elementary School Production ‘Phoenix – A Musical Story’ on Thursday afternoon. Friday, March 30th is a Teacher Only day with Professional and Curriculum Development planned for the day.

Have a wonderful weekend ahead.

Anne Fowles Head of School

News from Secondary School Dear parents,

We hope to finalise the partnership shortly to be able to offer this option to our Grade 11 students next year.

The Arts at IGBIS continue to be in the spotlight in the secondary school. Following on from a very successful ISTA Conference, we will now host our DP Visual Art Exhibition this Wednesday, 28th March at 6:30pm. The Exhibition will feature the work of our Grade 12 artists as well as selected pieces from other senior secondary students. This is always a great evening, full of art, music and appreciation. I encourage parents and families to come along - all are welcome to attend.

Speaking of the Arts, we are currently exploring an exciting new partnership, with the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). As part of our International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme (CP), we can build partnerships with universities where students take DP courses and a career-related study, which takes the form of university courses. For our students who are interested in a future involving the creative arts, this is a great option as they get to explore courses beyond what they would normally have access to, and gain university credit in the process.

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Finally, to conclude the focus on Arts, we will be having a Rhapsodic Recess on Thursday of next week, as our performing arts committee has organised a lunch time of musical performances.

I look forward to seeing the entertaining performers!

Looking forward, on 30th March there is no school for students.

Staff will be in school and having a professional development day.

I take this opportunity to remind students and parents that this will change the sequence of days in our rotating timetable, and to be sure to check the calendar that has been sent out.

Enjoy your weekend,

Michael Arcidiacono Secondary School Principal

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

News from Elementary School This week saw 32 parents attend the PYP workshop given by Mr. Chris and Mr. Geoff about ‘Students and Screen time’, they delved into parental concerns and some tips on helping students achieve balance in today’s technological age.

We also have tyre balancing, planters and a tyre climbing structure planned.

Coming up in the Elementary School we have a big weekend and week ahead as we are constructing our community playground.

We need your help to assist us. We will start at 8am on Sunday morning as we move car tyres, arrange them and set them in place.

The more help we have the better so please come along to the field at 8am this Sunday.

This week, Thursday 29th March at 1.45pm in the theatre we also have the Elementary School production of Phoenix – A Musical Story. It has been written by Ms. Susan and an abundance of Elementary school children are involved. I, for one, am really looking forward to it.

Dates for your diaries: • • •

Sunday 25th March: Community Playground build Thursday 29th March: Phoenix a musical story: 12.45pm Theatre Friday 30th March: Sunday 8th April: IGBIS school holiday for students

Simon Millward

Elementary School Principal

PYPX 2018: Week 2 Aga Chojnacka Primary Years Programme Coordinator

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Spotlight - Sophie Josen This week of Exhibition was exciting and hectic at the same time!

We finalised our Central Ideas and Lines of Inquiry to set more of a path for our research. We have identified three key questions that we are using to research.

One challenge we discovered was that we are not the best at time management! We have all now seen everyone working under pressure. Our Grade 5 Learning Lounge has been transformed into our personal Exhibition hubs. We have been assigned a space where we can work independently and efficiently.

We began to consider what we will showcase at the Exhibition.

Igniting Minds

We tried different methods of brainstorming ideas. One of these methods was the Crazy 8s system. We had 8 minutes and 8 boxes to fill with sketches of our possible ideas. We had a timer for one minute to complete each box.

The whole Exhibition process has been a little surreal...until now!

We received our PYPX t-shirts and design space. There will be some crazy busy, fun times ahead!

Impacting Lives

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IGBIS Student Achievement: Global Goals Model United Nations (MUN), 2018

Greta Corney MUN Co-Director

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Congratulations to Gareth Woo from Year 9 who has been selected to represent IGBIS from 1519 applicants internationally at the up and coming Global Goals MUN to be held in Kuala Lumpur from 13 to 16 April at Sunway Putra Hotel.

Global Goals MUN is a parliamentary-based forum with topics related to the 17 Global Goals set by United Nations encompassing issues such as poverty, health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, infrastructure and sustainability.

The conference aims to encourage delegates to understand each point of the Sustainable Development Goals, to share ideas, to network, and to improve their communication as well as diplomatic skills.

The event itself is astronomical as there will be over 1000 delegates present from more than 30 countries, which consist of university

students, high school students as well as many international participants, so being selected is a huge deal.

Thanks must go to Mrs Fowles and Mr. Ngatai, the Activities Director, for providing sponsorship to Gareth to participate in this event. We wish him every success during the conference.

ISTA Festival Jon Suffolk Performing Arts Teacher

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What an amazing weekend was had by the students and staff who attended the ISTA Middle School Festival, "Something in the Air" last weekend here at IGBIS. The teaching staff from International School Kuala Lumpur, French International School Hong Kong, and Canadian International School Hong Kong have all commented on what a great festival it was and what great artists, both local and international, the students were able to work with.

A huge thank you to Julie Arcidiacono (Events), Adiyati Ibrahim (Marketing), Cezars Catering, Rajsris Transport and our fantastic parent group.

And finally a huge thank you to Ms Hadewych Dujardin for being my supporting teacher throughout the festival.

New friendships were forged by our families hosting the visiting students from Hong Kong, new skills were developed in a range of workshops and the ensembles developed performances reflective of the festival title. It was simply amazing to see the work they produced in such a short period of time.

The international artists Tom Shulz (Singapore), Ulrich Gottlieb (Bangkok) and Kamil Haque (Singapore) brought their own original styles and experiences as ensemble leaders to the festival and shared many new ways of developing theatre with the students. The local artists Dr Zainal Abd Latiff, Silat specialist, and Mr John Hagedorn, drum circle expert, added distinctive local flavour to the event and delivered inspiring workshops.

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Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

Kids and Screen Time Discussion Geoff Derry Technology Integration Specialist

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It was great to see more than 30 parents come to our discussion on Thursday morning about how to best manage screen time for children. The discussion focused on what parents can do to help their children use devices appropriately, with modeling good device behaviour a key way to achieve success. The 1.5 hour session was packed with information and activities, hints and tips, as well as lots of questions and discussion. A highlight was everyone getting involved in a Kahoots online quiz, “Beat the Counselor”, where parents had to achieve a higher score than Mr Chris by showing their knowledge of device management strategies, age appropriate apps, and hints and tips for having a calm household. Parents shared success stories on strategies they use to help combat their childrens’ device addictions.

If you would like further information about screen time for students, please feel free to contact...

Mr Chris at chris.klesch@igbis.edu.my or Mr Geoff at geoff.derry@igbis.edu.my.

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

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Flying Phoenix!

Tim Bartle PE Teacher

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Athletics and Activities News Friday officially marked the end of another successful season of athletics and activities at IGBIS. Once again our students have participated in a range of extracurricular activities that have helped contribute to an enriched and well balanced school experience.

In what was the busiest season to date, the IGBIS Phoenix competed in a number of football, basketball, swimming and track and field competitions over the past ten weeks. Our students have demonstrated great commitment to improving their physical fitness and skills by attending training sessions and friendly matches which has resulted in our teams becoming stronger and more competitive.

The season highlights for me include: • Having more than 100 students regularly involved in organised physical activity every week at IGBIS. • Seeing a record number of elementary students swim at the KLISS Swimming Competition. This resulted in the school finishing in third place overall.

• 48 students from grades 6 to 11 choosing to participate in the KLISS Secondary Track and Field Competition. More than double our previous team size. What an amazing improvement.

• Hosting the KLISS Elementary Track and Field Championship and achieving our best ever result at this competition.

• The U9 Girls Football team contesting the KLISS Cup Finals.

• The U15 Girls Basketball team placing 2nd in the KLISS Cup Finals.

All of the above would not be possible without the amazing IGBIS staff who are to be thanked for their contributions as activity supervisors and coaches.

Students and parents will be able to make selections for Season 3 when the sign-up period begins at 7:30pm on Monday 26th March. Please used the “Activities” button on the school Splash page to register for Season 3 Athletics and Activities. The registration period will close at 5:30pm on Thursday 29th March.

Please complete the form during this time as late submission may lead to students missing out on activities.

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Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

KLISS Secondary Track and Field From humble beginnings, our school track team has seen incredible growth over the past few years. After our recent Secondary Track and Field Sports Day, 48 students from grades 6 to 11 represented the IGBIS Phoenix at the KLISS Track and Field Championships.

Our students showed great determination and resilience in challenging conditions and most of our students obtained personal best results.

The team would like to thank Ms Nathalie Chotard and Mr Sean McDermott for giving up their time to coach the team.

KLISS Elementary Track and Field On Friday 16th March, we welcomed over 350 students from eight International Schools to IGBIS for the KLISS Elementary Track and Field Championships. Our team of 40 students from grades 2 to 6 were inspired by the message “Never settle for less than your best� that was emblazoned on the fence at the IGBIS track. Whilst not every student came away with a medal, all our team members can be proud of the way they competed, never giving up and always putting in their best effort. The future for IGBIS is extremely bright and we look forward to seeing what our elementary teams can achieve in Season 3 and beyond.

Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives

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Igniting Minds

Impacting Lives